Sleep
by emicha
Summary: prompt: Levi/ Mikasa blanket scenario.


My head aches.

If I'm honest, my whole body does so. Sometimes, every bone of mine hurts. I'm not even twenty, but I can feel how the burdens I bear on my shoulders show their presence on my body, too. The pressure I expect my body and mind to go though every day, slowly shows by the fact that I sometimes feel like a living dead. A pressure which makes me feel like I'm nothing but damaged flesh and broken bones which only move to fight. To kill.

When everything feels like it's ripping apart, I try to sleep. To don't feel the pain. To arrive a new day. I never stop fighting.

But in the end, I don't get any rest. I often startle from sleep, sweat running down my forehead, the sheets of my bed stick on me like ice cold bonds and the faces of the lost are still right in front of my eyes. I cannot breath then. And after something like this, I won't fall back asleep again.

The thing is, I'm tired, I really am. But I cannot sleep.

In some nights, when I'm all by my own, when I lie awake in pain, that I almost expect to kill me soon, I wish somebody would be there to help me. To heal me. I wish somebody would try to keep every piece of mine together. But there is only darkness and the smell and taste of blood, which are always around me.

This night is a night like this.

I run through the house and yet, I find no place to stay. I'm restless.

The night is long yet, when I come out of the kitchen. In my hands I have a cup of black tea, that should keep me awake and make me less tired. It doesn't work well.

I decide to head back to my bed but a sudden, strident noise stops me. My senses are sharp and I know where the sound comes from immediately. I frown.

It must come from the Corporal's office, who is the only person who is also awake this late. I know so, because I often hear him talk to himself while he is working. Sometimes I only hear a pen that slides over paper. In other nights, he just walks around the room. But there are never noises. Never.

I'm curious, so I head to his door. Now there's dead silence. I linger in front of his office some time. _Maybe he's asleep_, I think but hardly believe it myself. I wonder if this man needs sleep at all.

Minutes pass by and I'm about to leave, but then I hear a heavy breath from inside the office. I stare at the wooden door and when I hear another noise, that I can recognize as china which smashed at the ground, I knock.

_Nothing. _

I knock again.

_Nothing._

I don't knock a third time and open the door to Corporal Levi's office without permission.

The room looks terrible. One of the windows is smashed and the fresh air from outside cools the office down. On the bottom next to the big desk lies the broken china cup, which makes the noise from earlier. And generally, the whole room is mess.

At last my gaze lies down on the man behind the desk. He covers his face with one hand, his body is tensed and he looks like he is in great pain.

For some time I just stand there, watching the mess and it kinda reminds me of myself, of the mess in my head, the mess in this world.

"What do you want, Ackerman?" His words are almost as cold as the air inside the room but I'm relieved he talked first.

"I heard noises.", I answer, still standing there like an idiot.

"Well, I guess you can see what these noises came from." Again his words are sharp but this time he takes the hand off his face. He doesn't look at me and even if the light is not that good, I can tell that he's pretty pale and his eyes are strangely dull. I look down the ground, because I know watching him would make him feel uncomfortable. I know how this feels.

"Why did you smash the window?", I hear me asking and now I can feel his gaze on me.

"I was angry."

"About what?"

And suddenly he laughs. It's an ugly laugh and it makes me feel uneasy. But the same time it makes me angry. How dare he laughs at me.

"What are you laughing at?", I ask. Now my words are as sharp as his. He's still laughing but when it dies, it's as suddenly as it starts. Our gazes meet and we look both angry.

"You're asking _why_ I am angry? _You _of all people ask me _what I'm angry about? _Stupid woman_._"

I stare at him and indeed I feel stupid. _Of course_, he is angry. He has all reason to be. All of us have. But he isn't just angry. Not at all. He's also desperate. He's afraid. My corporal is lonely. I can tell, because I feel the same way. Of course I do, I'm also part of _Humanity's Strongest_, I'm bearing the same burdens.

This man is just as hurt and weak as I am.

I take a seat on his desk, he didn't ask me to, but I don't care and he doesn't either. Silence lays over us.

"I cannot sleep." I say after a few minutes and iIt sounds like a confession, but he already knows anyway. I expect a harsh and cyinical answer but all he says is nothing but a tired "So can't I."

I fold my hands in my lap and look at the desk. "Nobody tells you that it would be like this. Nobody prepares you for the pain. Assholes..." We know each other for some years now, but I can't remember talking to him like this and it feels strange and slightly awkward.

"That's the price of staying alive, for being strong. We should be thankful." He looks disgusted when he speaks and I know it's just because he wants to cover what is hard to hold back.

"They hunt me in my sleep. They won't go away, right?"

The man nods. "They won't. That's why you will never have a good, deep sleep again. So you better get used to all this bullshit."

I laugh shortly. "Don't tell me you get ever used to it." I can see how his lips curl up. It's almost a smile he shows me. Almost.

"I just wanted to make you feel more comfortable. But I can't fool you, I guess."

I also show him a slight smile. "Thanks for trying anyway, Corporal."

Silence grows again and after sone time, I yawn. As I said, the shitty tea didn't work.

"You should get some sleep, Ackerman."

I sigh. "Didn't you listen earlier? I can't."

"I'll get some sleep, too. They will hunt me insteed of you then, I promise.", he says and points at the sofa across the room. "It's cozier than it looks."

For a moment I look at him, at his pale face, that got older over the years. Then I nod, walk to the sofa and lay down. It's truly comfortable, the bones in my back relax and a little afraid of nightmares, I close my eyes.

I don't know how much time has passed, but I can tell that I'm almost asleep, when I feel that something covers my body. I need some time to regonize it as a blanked, but it feels better right away, warmer. It's really cold inside the room. I open my eyes and see Levi in front of me. "I thought you want to sleep, too?" I'm afraid he didn't understand my murmured words, but he lays a finger on his lips. I sit up, the blanked close around my shoulders, and watch him. "You promised."

The man sighs and sits next to me. "Do you mind? The chair kills me some day."

I shake my head and, I don't why I do so, but I wrap the blanket also around him, so that it covers both of us. He doesn't mind my that close to him and I'm relieved.

We sit next to another and the blanked around my shoulders feels good. He next to me feels good. I feel good. Save.

When sleep comes over me, I feel how my head lays against his. It doesn't aches anymore. The pain is gone and I like to hear the sound of his yet steady breath.

I'm not able to name anything what happens since I entered the Corporal's office, but whatever it may be, it feels like something I want to keep at as long as I can.

It sounds stupid, but with the blanked around us I feel like I don't have to be afraid of breaking into pieces, it makes me feel alive.

And most important, it feels like home.


End file.
